History of Professional Football

When the Pittsburgh Athletic Club signed halfback star Grant Dilbert to a contract in 1893, professional football got its start. It evolved from humble beginnings unrecognizable to the modern fan into a premiere sports league that decides its championship in a contest called the Super Bowl.

  1. Early years

    • Professional football traces its roots to Ohio and Pennsylvania around 1900, where various clubs formed leagues and competed against each other.

    The NFL

    • The infant American Professional Football Association morphed into the National Football League in 1922, with teams such as the Louisville Brecks, Milwaukee Badgers and the Oorang Indians among the 18 teams in the circuit.

    1945

    • By 1945, the NFL was down to 10 teams in two divisions, with such familiar clubs as the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions vying for the championship.

    1950

    • In 1950, the NFL absorbed the Baltimore Colts, San Francisco 49ers and the powerful Cleveland Browns from the defunct All-American Football Conference.

    The AFL

    • The American Football Conference emerged as an alternative to the NFL in 1960, with teams in major cities such as New York and Boston. It was so successful that the NFL wound up merging with it in 1970 to form two separate conferences, which would meet at season's end for the NFL title.

    Expansion

    • Expansion brought the number of NFL teams to 32 as of November 2009, with 16 teams each in the National and American Football Conferences composing eight divisions.